Pages

Friday, 31 October 2014

The Battle of Coronel, November 1st 1914

November 1st 2014 is the 100th anniversary
of the first defeat to be suffered by Britain’s Royal Navy in a century. It was
fought in stormy seas and fading light off the coast of Chile and was to result
in the loss of over 1600 men. The circumstances were dramatic in the extreme.

The tragic HMS Good Hope

In an earlier blog (on August 1st) entitled
“Germany’s Doomed Nomads” I outlined how Imperial German Navy ships stationed
outside home waters at the outbreak of WW1 were in an unenviable position.
Germany possessed only one fortified naval base overseas – at Tsingtao in China
– and the various German colonies around the world – Togo, Cameroon, South-West
Africa, Tanganyika, Northern New Guinea and various Pacific island groups,
could provide only limited coaling and maintenance facilities. Tanganyika held
out until the end of the war but all other colonies were conquered by Britain
and her allies within the first year. As Tanganyika's coast was blockaded from the
beginning it could provide no facilities to support naval operations.

von Spee

Germany’s main overseas naval force was the East Asia
Squadron, based in Tsingtao. Commanded in 1914 by Vice Admiral Maximilian,
Reichsgraf von Spee, its main strength lay in two modern armoured Cruisers, the
Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and four modern light cruisers, Dresden, Emden, Leipzig and Nürnberg.
There were also a number of gunboats and a single destroyer, mainly for
police-type actions along the coast of China. Impressive as this force might
seem, it was puny by comparison with the naval forces of Britain’s ally,
Japan, which not only deployed large
numbers of superb ships and manned them with seasoned professionals, but which
nine years before had achieved the greatest naval victory in history up to that
time. There were in addition British ships in the area, and the Royal
Australian Navy’s flagship, the battlecruiser HMAS Australia, was alone superior to von Spee’s entire squadron.

SMS Leipzig - other German cruisers essentially similar

When war broke out in August 1914 most of the warships of
the East Asia Station were dispersed at various Pacific island colonies on routine
missions. Von Spee recognised that Tsingtao could not be held indefinitely – the
Japanese declared war on Germany in August 23rd after which they joined
Britain in a blockade and siege of the base. Von Spee accordingly ordered his ocean-going
vessels to rendezvous at Pagan Island in the northern Marianas. In conference with
his commanders there he planned, probably with little expectation of success, a
return voyage across the world to Germany. The key factor would be coal supply by chartered
colliers, which would have to meet the squadron at various points, their movements
being coordinated by radio. Organising this, and making it happen operationally
in the teeth of massive sweeps by the British and Japanese, was likely to be
difficult in the extreme. The Emden was detached to conduct a separate
– and very successful – campaign in the Indian Ocean. Von Spee was starved of
news as all German undersea cables through British controlled areas had been
cut, and radio capabilities were still very limited. The Nürnberg
was therefore dispatched to Hawaii – neutral territory – to gather war news. Von
Spee headed for German Samoa with Scharnhorst
and Gneisenau, then east, towards the
French possession of Tahiti, where they made a brief bombardment. Reunited, the
squadron coaled at Easter Island from German colliers.

SMS Gneisenau, identical to her sister Scharnhorst, in pre-war ochre and white livery

An obsolete cruiser SMS Geier,
failed to make the rendezvous at Pagan, and had to intern herself at then-neutral
Hawaii because of technical problems. Left behind at Tsingtao were four small
gunboats Iltis, Jaguar, Tiger, Luchs and
the torpedo boat S-90. This latter
craft was to score a significant success by torpedoing and sinking the old
Japanese cruiser Takachiho on October
29th. All these craft were scuttled prior to surrender of Tsingtao
to the British and Japanese in November.

SMS S-90, Nemesis of the old Japanese cruiser Takachiho

The British Admiralty made destruction of von Spee’s
squadron a high priority. The futile German bombardment of Papeete, Tahiti, and
the destruction of an old French gunboat there (wasting ill-afforded ammunition
in the process) led the British to concentrate the search in the Western
Pacific. This seems very unwise in retrospect since Japan, Britain’s ally, already
had substantial forces in this area and British units could have been more gainfully employed further east. (Hindsight is always of course 20/20). It was only in early October that an
intercepted radio message indicated that von Spee was heading for the west
coast of South America to destroy British merchant shipping there.

Good Hope, soon after commissioningDrawing by the eminent marine artist William Lionel Wyllie

Good Hope in wartime grey

The British squadron sent into the Pacific from the South
Atlantic to counter such a move was almost wholly made up of obsolescent or
poorly-armed vessels, crewed by inexperienced naval reservists (echoes here of
the Aboukir, Cressy and Hogue disaster covered in my blog of September
19th). The force commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher Cradock
consisted of the near-obsolete armoured cruisers Good Hope (flagship), and Monmouth,
the modern light cruiser Glasgow and a
weakly-armed converted liner, the Otranto.
For heavy back-up Cradock was assigned the old, slow, but powerfully-armed
pre-dreadnought Canopus. In the event
her worn-out machinery made it impossible, despite heroic efforts by her
engine-room crew, to keep pace with the cruisers.

Except for two individual 9.2-inch turret-mounted guns on Good Hope, and four 6-inch mounted on Monmouth in double-gun turrets, the remaining twenty-six 6-inch weapons carried by the armoured cruisers
were positioned in casemates built into the sides of the hulls. Some
of these casemates were “two-storey” ones, with weapons in the lower positions inoperable
in any significant seaway. This made a substantial portion of the armament
essentially unusable and, as the weakness was so obvious, one wonders why naval
architects persisted with this feature through successive design classes.

Monmouth - note the "two-storey" casemates for 6-in weapons

By contrast, von Spee’s armoured cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau each carried four 8.2-inch weapons in double-gun turrets
and each ship’s six 5.9-inch weapons, though casemate-mounted, were higher
above the waterline than on the British ships. The German 8.2-inch weapons were
markedly superior as regards range and firepower and both vessels had proved
themselves as “crack gunnery ships” in peacetime firings. Add to this the
superior German armouring and Cradock’s force can be seen to have been wholly
outmatched. Though the light cruiser Glasgow
was a superb new vessel, and individually superior to any one of her German
counterparts, she was outnumbered by Dresden,
Leipzig and Nürnberg.

The weakness of Cradock’s force was recognised, but the Admiralty
seems to have placed excessive trust in the presence of the Canopus and the four 12-inch guns of her
main armament. Cradock was told to use Canopus
as "a citadel around which all our
cruisers in those waters could find absolute security".

Cradock

It is notable that both Cradock and von Spee were largely
similar personalities – decent and
honourable men who shared the same enthusiasm and dedication to their
profession and who would have been good friends in other circumstances. There
was a chivalry and delicacy about both of them that belonged to an age which had
even by then almost disappeared. The Royal Navy was Cradock’s whole life – he
never married – and he had said that his preferred death would be either in a hunting
accident or during action at sea. A quote from book he wrote in 1908, “Whispers
from the Fleet,” describes the operations of a cruiser squadron in near-poetic
terms and prefigures, uncannily, the actual death which was to be so close to
that he wished for:

"The
Scene: - A heaving unsettled sea, and away over to the western horizon an angry
yellow sun is setting clearly below a forbidding bank of the blackest of wind-charged
clouds. In the centre of the picture lies an immense solitary cruiser with a
flag – ‘tis the cruiser recall – at her masthead blowing out broad and clear
from the first rude kiss given by the fast rising breeze. Then away, from half
the points of the compass, are seen the swift ships of a cruiser squadron all
drawing into join their flagship: some are close, others far distant and hull
down, with nothing but their fitful smoke against the fast fading lighted sky
to mark their whereabouts; but like wild ducks at evening flighting home to
some well-known spot, so are they, with one desire, hurrying back at the behest
of their mother-ship to gather around her for the night."

In late October both the British and German forces were close
to the coast of Chile, von Spee off Valparaíso and Cradock further south, but no
contact had yet been made. Glasgow
entered the Chilean port of Coronel to collect messages and news from the
British consul. She found there a German supply ship which promptly radioed
news of her arrival to von Spee. In line with the laws of neutrality Glasgow could take no action in port against this vessel and she left Coronel to rejoin Cradock. On
receipt of the news von Spee headed south to run down Glasgow. Alerted
by German radio-traffic (the importance of radio silence does not appear to
have been yet appreciated) Cradock turned north to meet the Germans, leaving Canopus far behind and Glasgow steaming south to join him.

The squadrons were now on a collision course and given the
disparity in forces Cradock’s decision to advance seems almost inexplicable,
the more so since he would lack Canopus’s
support. It was said later that he was "constitutionally incapable of
refusing action". Another explanation is that, knowing his mission was
impossible, Cradock wanted to damage von Spee’s ships and to force him to use
ammunition he could not replace, so making them easy targets for other British forces which would follow.

Canopus - heavily armed but too slow to support Cracock

Glasgow joined Good Hope, Monmouth and Otranto
early on November 1st, in seas too rough to allow human inter-ship transfer, messages
being sent across by line instead. In early afternoon Cradock deployed his
ships in line of battle and at 1617 hrs the German squadron sighted British
smoke. Von Spee took Scharnhorst,
Gneisenau and Leipzig ahead,
leaving the slower Dresden and Nürnberg to follow.

Confronted by this overwhelming force Cradock ordered a turn
away so that both squadrons rushed south in a chase that was to lasted 90
minutes. The slow, 16 knot, Otranto
was now Cradock’s millstone and he knew that he must choose between abandoning
her and continuing to run south with Good
Hope, Monmouth and Glasgow or to stand
and fight to protect the useless converted liner. Cradock decided he must
fight, and drew his ships closer together, turning to the south-east to close
with the German vessels while the sun was still high. He also ordered the Otranto, which was too weakly armed to influence the outcome, to escape west at full speed. Von Spee, meanwhile, was
manoeuvring his force to ensure that the British ships to the west would be
outlined against the setting sun.

Sharnhorst in action - note rough sea

Von Spee responded to Cradock’s manoeuvre by turning his own
faster ships away, maintaining the distance between the forces at 14,000 yards as
they steamed inparallel. At 1818 hrs, with
little daylight left, Cradock again tried to close, but von Spee once more turned
away to open the range. The sun set at 1850 hrs and the British ships were now
silhouetted against the last light in the west.

Von Spee closed the range to 12,000 yards and opened fire.

What followed was a massacre. The British 6-in weapons were
outranged by the German 8.2’s and when Cradock made another attempt to close
the German fire became even more devastatingly accurate. By 1930 hrs both Good Hope and Monmouth were on fire, and easy targets for the German gunners now that
darkness had fallen, whereas the German ships were shrouded in darkness. Monmouth’s guns fell silent but Good Hope continued firing until 1950
hrs when she too ceased fire, then exploded and disappeared. Scharnhorst maintained a merciless fire
on Monmouth, while Gneisenau joined Leipzig and Dresden in engaging
Glasgow. The Glasgow was still relatively undamaged but her captain turned away
to escape in the darkness, recognising that continuing the battle would be
futile.

Glasgow - Cradock's most modern ship

Monmouth, badly
damaged, but still afloat, tried to run eastwards to beach herself on the Chilean
coast. The Germans lost her temporarily in the darkness but the Nürnberg, the slowest of von Spee’s
ships, was to find her.The German
captain directed his searchlights on to Monmouth’s
ensign in an invitation to surrender but she refused to do so. Nürnberg then opened fire reluctantly and
sank her. Aware that Canopus might be
somewhere in the vicinity von Spee turned north and the action ended.

All battles are horrible but Coronel seems particularly ghastly.
The rough seas, the all but impotent British armoured cruisers being pounded
with salvo after salvo, the darkness, the raging fires, Good Hope’s explosive end, the hope raised on Monmouth that she might yet survive, only to have it dashed, all
combine to give the encounter a nightmare quality. There were no survivors from
either Good Hope or Monmouth, 1,600 British officers and men,
including Cradock, having been killed. Glasgow and Otranto both escaped, neither with fatalities. Two British shells,
both duds, hit Scharnhorst, and four
shells struck Gneisenau. Three German
seamen were wounded. The greatest loss to von Spee was the expenditure of
ammunition which could not be replaced. When they next faced British ships, as
they would a month later, the German squadron would do so with depleted
magazines.

Von Spee was aware that his victory would not be enough to
save his squadron, far from home as it was and without German bases between.
When, two days later, his squadron entered Valparaiso to the cheers of the
German residents, he refused to join in the celebrations. Presented with a bouquet
of flowers, he remarked "These will do nicely for my grave".

The defeat at Coronel, the first surface action in over a
century which the Royal Navy had lost, was both shocking and unexpected. Only
by swift and total annihilation of von Spee’s squadron could the humiliation be
avenged. Massive forces were sent south from Britain to ensure this – as they did
a month later.

2 comments:

Warfare is a fascinating subject. Despite the dubious morality of using violence to achieve personal or political aims. It remains that conflict has been used to do just that throughout recorded history.

Warfare is a fascinating subject. Despite the dubious morality of using violence to achieve personal or political aims. It remains that conflict has been used to do just that throughout recorded history.

About Me

My "Dawlish Chronicles" are set in the late 19th Century and reflect my deep interest in the politics, attitudes and technology of the period. The fifth novel in the series, “Britannia’s Amazon” is now available in both paperback and Kindle formats. It follows the four earlier Dawlish Chronicles, "Britannia's Wolf", "Britannia's Reach”, "Britannia's Shark" and "Britannia's Spartan". Click on the book covers below to learn more or to purchase.
I’ve had an adventurous career in the international energy industry and am proud of having worked in every continent except Antarctica. History is a driving passion in my life and I have travelled widely to visit sites of historical significance, many insights gained in this way being reflected in my writing. I welcome contact on Facebook and via this Blog. My website is www.dawlishchronicles.com and its “Conflict” section has a large number of articles on topics from the mid-18th Century to the early 20th Century.